


C is for Coward

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byron had initially thought Scott was a coward for committing suicide. Now he realises that he is the coward in the family after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	C is for Coward

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for suicide

Byron hadn’t taken it seriously at first when it started with Scott. His parents had asked whether he had any idea what was wrong with him, but Byron had been quick to brush it off. He was making good grades, he was on the football team, he was popular. He didn’t need some weird kid brother screwing up his life. That was the way he saw Scott’s behaviour when it first started, just as weird. He hadn’t even tried to figure out what was behind it. When Scott’s friends had come to him asking if he had any clue why he’d just bitten their heads off for no obvious reason, he’d shrugged it off without thinking any more about it.

In time, he began to avoid Scott, to keep his distance from him at school and at home. One day, there had been a scene in the cafeteria when some kid had spilled something on Scott and he’d got angrier than it warranted. Dana, the new girl in Byron’s class, had turned to him and asked “Isn’t that your brother?”

Byron had shaken his head. “Him? No, that’s just some kid with the same last name as me. He’s nothing to do with me.” He hoped she’d bought it, although his best friend Phil, who’d known both brothers all their lives, was staring at him open-mouthed. For a moment he glanced over at where Scott stood in the middle of the cafeteria, covered in food, just staring into space. Then he deliberately turned his back on his brother and started talking to Dana about some party or other that was coming up.

Looking back on it afterwards, Byron thought that this was the moment that his cowardice began.

 

Scott began to take to his bed during the day, reluctant to surface for meals or to engage with the family in spite of their mother’s pleading. The school called and said he’d been cutting class, and their father asked Byron how come he’d never noticed Scott’s absences, since they were at the same school. Unbelievable, Byron thought. Scott cuts, and Byron was the one who got the crap from their dad. 

After that, Byron did try to talk to Scott, but Scott wouldn’t engage with him. Byron stood in the doorway to his room, watching Scott lie on his bed and stare right through him as though he wasn’t there, in a way that spooked him. In the end, he gave up and it became easier for Byron to avoid Scott. 

Their parents started physically taking Scott to school and fetching him back, just to make sure he actually went. This, of course, just drew more attention to Scott, and Byron spent more time pretending not to know him. 

When their parents left for their friends’ anniversary party, they asked Byron to make sure Scott was okay. He’d headed straight for his room after they’d collected him from school that day and hadn’t surfaced since. Byron stuck it out for a couple of hours, then thought that it was ridiculous. He shouldn’t have to babysit for his sixteen year old brother. He was already late for Phil’s party. Besides, what was Scott going to do apart from sleep in his room with the door locked again?

Byron grabbed his jacket, hesitated for a moment before he called out goodbye to Scott. Had he heard Scott grunt something in response? Afterwards, he’d insisted that he had. With the window the family had been given for time of death, it was difficult to be certain one way or the other. But Byron had to believe that Scott had made some sort of response to him, that he had still been alive when Byron had left for Phil’s party. Even as his parents looked at him, and he saw what he feared was doubt in their eyes, he continued to believe that he had heard some sort of response from Scott.

Byron had got back late, after his parents had gone to bed, and he presumed that Scott had too. The next morning, even then he didn’t think much of it when Scott failed to come downstairs after repeated shouting from their parents. It wasn’t the first time. In the end, their father had said “Dammit, Byron, tell your brother to get his ass down here. I haven’t got all day.” Byron had muttered under his breath “Scott, you are so dead.”

 

“Dammit, Scott,” Byron had raged initially. “You’re a coward.” Why had Scott not tried to talk to Byron, or their parents, or even his friends? But over time, he began to realise the answer. He hadn’t exactly made himself available for Scott to talk to him. Scott knew that Byron had been denying that they were brothers, so he was hardly going to want to talk to him. As for his friends, quite a few of them had just had enough of the way he was treating them and had started distancing themselves from him.

He’d been the coward himself, not Scott, with the way he kept burying his head in the sand, trying to distance himself from his brother’s problems. He’d refused to face up to the fact that there even was a problem. But Byron was determined that he would never hide away from anything the same way again. And yet he understood now that he had failed to keep to that promise he had made to Scott’s memory. When Ella had that anonymous letter telling her about him and Meredith, Byron had been quick to judge A whoever for being cowardly enough to hide behind anonymity, but had his actions in persuading Aria to keep his secret been any less so? And he should have been the one to punch Fitz, not Mike. Dammit, he’d entertained the guy in his home, had beers with him, and the whole time Ezra was involved with his daughter. Byron had asked Mike later why he’d done it, and Mike had said “I already told Aria this. It was better that it was me than you.” Mike shouldn’t be fighting Byron’s battles, and Byron shouldn’t be letting him.

He knew that Ella didn’t agree with him about the best way to handle Mike’s problems. But at the time Ella’s actions in wanting to give Mike space had reminded him of what had happened with Scott. Byron had given him space, and look what had happened to him. He had to take action.

He’d told himself that he was never going to be a coward again, and he’d broken his word. So Byron wasn’t going to bury his head in the sand again. He’d tackle that Fitz joker, make sure Mike got the help he needed. It was time for him to face up to his responsibilities as a father.


End file.
